Preventing minor accidents in the workplace, snowyplace, or anyplace

Date: 22/02/1996

THE European Commission's announcement of the creation of a Major Accident Hazards Bureau has naturally been welcomed world-wide. Based at Ispra in Italy, it will assist the Union in its efforts to prevent potential disasters. It will analyse major accidents notified to the Commission, run a documentation centre on industrial risk, and sponsor and organise various studies and workshops.

This is indeed valuable work. The goal, according to a Commission statement last week, is “the prevention of major accidents and the limitation of their consequences for man and the environment”.

But let us not forget, in the midst of our excitement over this initiative, the jolly fine work already being conducted in the Major Accident Hazards Bureau's sister organisation, the Minor Accident Hazards Bureau (MAHB).

Appropriately based at Knokke, on the Belgian coast, it assists the EU in its efforts to prevent potential minor accidents. It analyses minor accidents notified to the Commission, runs a documentation centre on domestic and leisure risks, and sponsors and organises various studies and workshops.

The day I visited the centre, it was particularly busy, dealing with another catalogue of chip pan fires and faulty wiring circuits in the home, a fresh crop of ski slope broken legs and soccer field groin injuries to add to the shocking toll of EU human resources rendered unproductive through negative incident occurrences during domestic and leisure time pursuit activities.

Above the door to Hans Trubbelshuter's office hangs a simple wooden sign warning: “Mind your head!”

Hans, whose left hand was bandaged, was in the middle of collating fresh Euro-data which had just arrived. He was adding new figures to the “Injuries Involving Breadknife-Wielding in the Kitchen” dossier. Normally this is the task of a more junior member of his team, but unfortunately the relevant operative was off work after fracturing his jaw in a minor accident in which his tie got caught in the shredding machine.

Hans intends to tell the fellow off when he gets out of hospital, but also points out that the incident simply highlights how vulnerable all members of society are.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Hans has now ordered the opening of a new file marked “Shredding Machine Injuries - Risks and Perspectives” and says it is already filling up. This means the bureau will learn from its own mistakes as well as everyone else's.

Hans' bandaged hand also demonstrates that he is clearly at the cutting edge of the EU's accident prevention work. His nasty injury was, in fact, caused by a paper cut that very morning, so he feels he is in touch with the public he is trying to serve.

He is an external 'expert' appointed jointly by DGXI (environment) and DGXII (research) to run MAHB, and is relaxed about the fact that the new major accident initiative is getting all the publicity.

“Look, it's obvious that the Commission needs to monitor the major accident hazards associated with certain industrial activities involving dangerous substances which have the potential to cause serious injury to people, or significant damage to the environment” he said.

“I am thinking here of major accidents which have occurred within the Union and world-wide, such as Flixborough in the UK in 1974, Seveso in Italy in 1976 and Bhopal in India in 1984,” he added.

Hans paused to input some data about a series of do-it-yourself injuries in private dwellings in the Ruhr, and then warmed to his theme. “What we must not overlook, however, when standing back to gaze at the big picture, is the small picture. Because for every major Chernobyl incident which grabs the headlines, there are thousands of minor kettle scaldings, chimney fires, unsafe plumbing dramas and dangerous banister rails threatening the health and safety of ordinary citizens.”

Hans is right. Accidents in the workplace and in the homeplace cost society trillions of lost working hours every year. Then there are accidents in the leisureplace - extensive golf ball bruising on the links, hockey-stick side-swipes to the head on the playing field, horse-riders trampled underfoot, twisted ankles on the running track and pulled muscles on the exercise bike. It all adds up to a huge drain on the EU's supply of viable human resources.

And if the work of the bureau can prevent just one minor domestic or leisure accident, insists Hans, it will all have been worthwhile.

He points out that months of effort have created a computer bank of specialised information and experience. Members of the public who are concerned about possible outbreaks of, for instance, walking into plate glass doors, or dropping an iron on the foot, can now call in for the latest statistics and risk assessment evaluation material.

Special 'info-points' are being opened in towns and cities across Europe and a poster campaign has been built around the theme “Watch out! There's an accident about!”

The introduction of round-the-clock analysis is speeding up the work and helping MAHB staff anticipate even highly-unlikely crises. For example, the newly-developed Minor Accident Hazards Advanced Warning System is now enjoying some success in predicting outbreaks of fingers stuck in keyholes in the domestic environment and backs damaged tripping over carelessly-left skateboards or school satchels during the post-learning period of the day when children return from the schoolplace to the homeplace.

During my visit, there was a bit of a panic when the documentation centre recorded a sudden spate of banging shins into coffee tables in urban areas and an apparently unrelated series of overturning tractors in the ploughed fieldplace.

These will be fed into the database to try and build up a pattern, a chain of cause-and-effect which can render the bureau more proactive.

One classic example is its success this winter with a “Go skiing - break a leg!” initiative. Years of close monitoring of minor accident graphs and inputting of weather conditions enabled officials to issue perfectly accurate warnings that between December and the end of March, many European citizens would break legs and possibly arms in alpine leisure environments in the snowyplace.

Hans says it demonstrates the value of the bureau's work. Let the big boys worry about Chernobyl, he says. His job is to look after the individual citizen.

He bade me farewell and saw me to the door.

“Mind how you go” he said, and, taking the word of an expert very seriously, I did.